


la poésie est dans la rue

by jacksmannequin



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Poetry, the try guys are part of the shane protection squad, they're both english nerds, this is some pretentious shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 14:09:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17941169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksmannequin/pseuds/jacksmannequin
Summary: In which words hold more power than anything else.





	la poésie est dans la rue

Ever since the student council decided more art was needed on campus and put up a board specifically for students to leave original poems, all they got was crap.

Shane would never outright admit it, and not just because he was one of the members who supported the project, but the majority of them sucked.

Okay, maybe it's just because of that.

It's worrying more than anything because there's a huge number of English majors on campus. Either that says a lot about the current state of college students or the only ones who actually bother putting up their creations are the Engineering majors. Mixing engineering and poetry never works well.

So when one morning he's on his way back from class and he finds something worthy of actually being called a poem stuck to the board, he can't quite believe it.

He carefully takes it from the board and reads it once, twice and then multiple other times.

_though our lips have not touched_  
_we breathe the same air_  
_and as our molecules collide_  
_you shall know this to be true_  
_for if you don't... well then_  
_maybe i've been wasting my time_  
_these things we say, are not just things we say_  
_they are our lies and our truth, our love and our hate_  
_and though my tongue may be sharp at times_  
_in my heart i believe in us_  
_the moments we've shared together_  
_real or imagined_  
_are just a preamble_  
_i look forward to floating, lost, in our vastness_

There's no signature at the end of it, so he just keeps staring at it. It's handwritten and the script is kind of messy, but a good kind of messy. It looks like the person who wrote it has good handwriting but scribbled it quickly in a stream of consciousness and left it at that.

Shane looks around and when he sees there's nobody in the hallway he takes out his phone, snaps a picture of the poem and leaves.

*

The next day he's late but stops to check anyway because he's running on autopilot.

The poem from yesterday is not there anymore, but another one is right there in the same spot and the handwriting is the same, just slightly less rushed. The words are more evident though, heavier somehow. The ink is purple and some words have been crossed out, rewritten multiple times.

_i am alive at times and dead at others_  
_i am loved, and so i love_  
_i’ve been hurt, and so i hurt_  
_i am you, and you are me_  
_and we are perfectly imperfect_  
_as we should be_

He doesn't realize he's been stuck in the same spot for five minutes with the poem in his hand until a girl from his next lecture taps him on the shoulder and informs him class has been cancelled.

He thanks her quietly and puts the poem back on the board.

He doesn't notice a short boy staring at him in the distance, so he blinks twice back to real life and heads to the library.

*

"We all saw those two poems, right?"

Everyone in the room either nods or says something resembling a yes. Shane keeps tapping his pen on the table in a nervous habit.

"Man, stop it."

Shane puts the pen down and sighs.

"Why are we treating this like an emergency?" Zach asks from behind him and Eugene scoffs.

"Because Shane here is in love with the mysterious author and we all know what happens when he's in love," Zach states. Shane throws the pen at him and Zach avoids it ducking his head.

"Nothing happens."

"You holed yourself up in your dorm room and wrote twenty thousand words of an epic poem that you then threw in the trash because Sara got a boyfriend in the process," Keith announces from the seat next to Shane.

"That was... a mistake," Shane mutters.

"One of many other mistakes," Zach adds.

Shane shakes his head and leans back into his chair, arms crossed on his chest.

"I have no idea who this person is. I'm not in love."

"Well, for starters, it has to be a girl because no man has a handwriting this nice," Zach says, waving the poem in the air.

"Maybe he's gay," Keith suggests.

"What's the correlation?" Eugene asks.

"That's what I wanna know too because Eugene's gay and can't even understand his own notes," Shane says.

"It's not that bad," Eugene replies and everyone stares at him.

"It is that bad," Shane says flatly.

"Okay, back on track." Zach sighs and shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "Does anybody have an idea of who it might be?"

Nobody says anything. Keith raises his hand.

"We're not in class, just talk."

"I think it's a guy because I saw him put up another poem before I came here."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Zach exclaims. Shane hides his face with his hands.

"What were you waiting for?"

"You guys were offering strategies. I didn't want to interrupt the creative flow."

Zach kneels down to retrieve the pen Shane threw at him earlier and throws it back at Keith, hitting him on his forehead.

"What the fuck," he says, rubbing the spot with his fingers.

"So who was it?"

"Never seen him before but he was like, short. He had a bag full of pins and weird shit, like with ghosts on them. He was wearing Ghost Adventures merch. And dark hair. I wouldn't date someone obsessed with ghosts."

Eugene laughs. "So basically half of the film department?"

"Did you just say he put up another poem?" Shane interjects.

"Yeah, wh-"

Before he can finish the sentence Shane is already out of the room.

"So, who's planning the intervention for when he gets his heart broken again?"

*

When he gets there and he sees another lined sheet with the by now familiar handwriting on it he immediately takes it down and reads it. The ink is dark green this time and the words are neater than before.

_dying_  
_is an art, like everything else_  
_i do it exceptionally well_  
_i do it so it feels like hell_  
_i do it so it feels real_  
_i guess you could say i have a call_

This time, he doesn't hesitate before taking it with him.

*

He slumps down in his seat and closes his eyes, cursing the day he decided he could survive an 8 AM French Literature class. It wasn't even required for his degree, he just likes Decadent poets, but maybe not that early in the morning.

The lecture has already been going for ten minutes when the door opens and a guy quickly enters the room, muttering his apologies to the professor, who shrugs it off and goes back to talking about Charles Baudelaire and his misanthropy.

Shane looks up from his notes and stops chewing on his pen, his brain immediately waking up when he notices the dark haired boy, who just sat down two rows ahead of him, is carrying a bag with a shitload of pins on it.

When the professor dismisses class, Shane puts his stuff away and stands up, determined to stop him, but he's already gone.

*

"I think he might be in one of my classes."

"Who?" Keith asks without looking at Shane.

"Poem dude!"

"Then ask him."

"I can't just _ask_ him," he says, stopping Keith with a hand on his shoulder.

"Yes you can," Keith replies and starts walking again.

"What if it's not him?" Shane calls out after him.

"Then it's not him!" Keith says without looking back.

*

As his eyes skim over the poem, his vision gets slightly blurry. The ink is black and some words are underlined.

_i got my bags all packed and i'm ready to go_  
_i'm standing outside of your figurative door_  
_and i'm ready for the flight or to fall of a cliff_  
_but if it's alright with you_ _i'd rather not miss out on us_  
_cause_ _your face_ _is all i need to stay sane_  
_i've spent my life getting in my own way_  
_so i could use_ _something good_  
_i really need this to work out_

When he looks up the first thing he sees is the guy from class staring at him. When their eyes meet he suddenly looks alarmed, his face embarrassed, and he turns his back to Shane, walking away before he can do anything other than stare at the empty spot he left.

*

"I think it's him."

"Then go get him."

*

Shane skips French class, and if it looks like he did it because he's scared shitless, it's not. He has a plan, or so he tells himself.

He looks at the clock on his lockscreen and when it finally signals it's 9 and people start coming out of the room, he pretends to check something on his phone while keeping an eye on the stream of students in the hallway.

As soon as he spots a familiar bag, his eyes instantly shoot up and he walks towards him before he can change his mind.

"Hi," Shane says, and the boy stops walking, looking instantly embarrassed.

"Hey." The grip of his hands on his bag gets tighter but he doesn't do anything else.

"I love your poems."

"I- oh." The boy bites his bottom lip but doesn't deny, and Shane finally takes a good look at him, and he's beautiful. His eyes are alert and Shane can't stop staring at him.

"Was that last poem for me?"

"They all were." He combs a hand through his hair with a nervous movement. "I didn't think you were gonna find me."

"I got lucky," Shane admits. "Why didn't you say anything in class?"

He laughs quietly, a bitter edge to it. "You are way out of my league."

"Nobody who's that good at writing is out of my league."

The boy looks down, his face hot. Shane takes a step forward until they're dangerously close.

"I've been staring at you for two months and you never noticed," he says, his voice so low Shane can barely hear him.

The ocean of students has dried out by now and they're the only ones in the hallway, but Shane feels like they're the only ones in the whole campus.

"I'm not awake enough in the mornings," Shane says, leaning forward.

The boy laughs again, but it's less strained this time.

"You don't even know my name."

"That's a useless detail."

They keep staring at each other, Shane's lips curving into a smile.

"It's Ryan, by the way."

"Okay then, Ryan," Shane says, his voice low. "I love the way you use words. Wanna go out?"

"Are you asking me on a date?" Ryan asks, mirroring Shane's smile with his own.

"I'm just trying not to kiss you on the spot."

Ryan licks his lips, his eyes wide open. "I never said I don't want you to."

Shane smiles again and leans in and when their lips meet it's like time stops for a couple of seconds.

Ryan kisses him back and when they pull apart, his lips are swollen and he's smiling.

"Were those poems enough for this?"

"I'm a romantic soul," Shane says, shrugging, and Ryan kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> poems are not mine. they're all by frank iero (allegedly), except for the one about dying (that's sylvia plath), so credits to the authors.  
> title from love it if we made it by the 1975 but it's in french


End file.
